To MFS: I figured out not only a brand new way for everyone in the family to keep up with us...
...but also a central place to store important information for easy access by everyone if anyone should ever step in for me. I started an online "Caretaker's Journal". Have you ever heard of weblogs (it is all one word, now, I think, although it started out as two; also called a "blog"). Well, they are web journals that, supposedly, anyone can have access to, unless you privatize it, which I haven't. It usually includes the activation of some sort of software that allows the owner to post entries to the journal, which are timed, dated and published at the person's own website. My ISP provided weblogging software allows me to create a variety of pages. You can also upload your own hand coded html pages. I will probably be doing that for some of the site, soon. Their templates are not at all flexible, but it allows a certain uniformity to the presentation.
    Anyway, I post in my journal at least once a day. It is always about Mom's day, Mom&Me, just whatever I think of writing. I purposely include detail about doctor's visits, test results, and lots of funny stories, conversations with people, musings, etc. Sometimes I write out in the journal the things you and I used to talk about and write about. When I started doing this I became curious about the existence of other caretaker/giver journals on the web. There are a fair number of eldercare-related website, even though Web of Care is gone. And some of those have places for members to post their caregiver journals, so doing this is not unusual. All of them are conceived completely differently than mine, though, and most don't have much material. I started it in the middle of May, then stopped it for a month, then restarted it in the middle of June. I've added lots of things. There is a complete Mom's Medication Page that includes all kinds of information about and besides her medication schedule. It also includes decisions made about the administration of certain medications, supplements, etc., records those medications to which she reacts badly, gives countermeasures to alleviate the need for some medications, and I update it scrupulously. That is there for everyone's edification, including mine.
    It will also include pertinent experiences we have with health care providers that I think everyone should know about. It will include, for instance, at least mention of my review of the Colonoscopy Decision (which is an open decision). That, however, a lot of it, will be covered in another part. MFS, because of the wealth of information and anecdotes contained in the emails I've written to you and to MFASRF, and because I think that making those available not only to our family to but anyone who is wondering about what eldercare is REALLY like, or wants to read something within which they recognize themselves, their loved one and/or their situation, I've begun scanning (literally, by using search words like "mother" and "mom") all the letters I've written to people about Mom of which I still have copies (I lost some when my machine crashed in December; which is probably good because I've got loads of stuff as it is) pulling and compiling those sections. I'm publishing them within these journals site as Histories. I want to give both an accurate and detailed account of Mom's and my caregiving experiences, so I am including a lot that gives a flavor of relationships and relationship events that happen within the family, anecdotal accounts of Mom's "progress" through old age, accounts of my personal reactions to situations, etc., as they crop up. I also have an Information & Resource page. It has very few links, so far. I am trying to get this site listed with some of the eldercare publications on the web. Diarist.net has listed it, and one eldercare site has responded that they would be "honored" (probably a stock response) to list my journal, but it hasn't gone up yet. There are a few others I've contacted, as well, about listing it.
    In The Histories, by the way, I've disguised people and have only glossed over heavy duty relationships and relationship events. I also do not include other people's letters. In some cases I will be including notes I occasionally write to myself about Mom. I don't want to hide the stresses that a caregiving situation adds to a family and I don't want to air dirty laundry, at least not with the name tags attached. I think I'm being careful.
    Anyway, you'll note, when you get there, that there are already volumes and volumes of words. I really am not expecting anyone, friend or stranger, to actually read the journal all the way through, especially since it is continually expanding, so I've added a really good, site specific search engine. I reindex the site at least once a day, so it is always up-to-date. MFS, you can type in anything and it will bring up locations of where that thing has been written about. Say, for instance, you want to review blood test results. Type in "blood test", or, more inclusively "blood", in either a simple search or an advanced search, and you instantly have access to a short history of Mom's blood tests! Although I do not have these specific incidents in yet, say you want to look up and see when it was that Mom was having very bizarre episodes (burning toilet paper, trying to smoke cigarettes covered with Taco Bell Mild Sauce, etc.). Type in anything you can remember, "toilet paper", "matches", etc., and you'll probably find that episode, and it will be dated. Well, not those, yet. I'm just now compiling 2001, and that was the year those happened, so those haven't been uploaded, yet.
    Aside from helping to bring caregivers out of the closet, so to speak (although our situation really isn't that dramatic), I think it will be a wonderful way for the family to keep up with Mom and her journey. I want everyone in the family to at least know about it, even though they may not often go there. Just to keep it active enough to make sure places who list journals will consider it a worthy entry, I have and will be posting to it every day, if nothing else. Aside from it keeping a running tab on Mom it also is wonderful therapy for me. It allows me distance, which I sometimes sorely need.
- posted by gail rae @ 08:42  0 comments   email...this post

 
Slumber Party Hang Over...
...that's what my mother is experiencing. We reassembled the slumber party, hurriedly and fitfully the same night we left it, here at "home", at our house, at MPS's & MPNC's suggestion.
    She seemed lively earlier this morning, performing her pre-awakening toilet rituals. I mentioned her hair appointmentas she headed back to bed before 0700 and she said, "Oh! Yes!" and touched her hair. "We mustn't forget that!"
    But, it has been forgotten. She seemed drawn too long at 0930 and asked me to let her sleep in until the last possible moment for a 1300 appointment, which worked out to awakening her between 1030 and 1045. She emerged from sleep sluggishly, took her breathing treatment, ate breakfast, then headed back for bed.
    I was able to arrest her the first time and turn her toward a filling tub. The second time, though, moments later, she turned out the light on a bubbly, steamy bath and crawled back into bed before I knew it.
    So, I told her hair dresser, "Slumber Party Hang Over."
    She laughed.
    I left her sleeping at home to do some errands. I have a few more to do later. She's up, but I haven't talked to her. She's been in the bathroom since I returned. The cats aren't frantic, so I know she's all right, relatively speaking.
    I wasn't expecting her slumber party hang over, although it's not unheard of. She ate heartily, for her, she also ate impeccably healthily, also for her, was alert and interested in the goings on for the most part, awoke with the rest of us and surprised us all by not being particularly interested in pancakes in the morning. Sometimes she does this "for show", "for company", but this clearly wasn't the case since she was here at home. She just wanted sausage and eggs.
    Ah, here she is. She's decided to stay up and wants me to turn off the oxygen machine so she can smoke in 20 minutes. She argues with the 20 minute wait every time, and every time I tell her I will not risk the possibility of her unspontaneous combustion; I don't care whether she's done it "accidentally" before, successfully, or not. At least once every two weeks, over some smoking incident, I tell her, "Mom, if I die because of careless smoking on your part, I will never forgive you." Her eyes always dance in response. They did, just now.
    She seems energetic. Perhaps I can persuade her to an animated afternoon with the lure of the wheel chair.
- posted by gail rae @ 13:39  0 comments   email...this post

 
Just in case you show up...
...Hi, MFS!
    The day is off to a slow, difficult start. Our brand new air conditioner is freezing over on what promises to be the hottest day of the year, a predicted 114° F. It is remaining cool while the ice melts and the repair person should be here soon, but Mom has internalized the possible heat and has decided to endure it in bed, so far. It's still early...ah, the a/c repair guy just called. He's on his way.
    A thorough update may not be possible until this evening, sometime, but, in the meantime, if you check in, MFS, hi!
- posted by gail rae @ 08:55  0 comments   email...this post

 
Medication List
    I am in the process of turning the medication list into tables, which should be easier to read. As I go I will delete repeated information, update some, and leave all information available in one form or another. All information will be up-to-date as of the point where I stop transforming the page.
- posted by gail rae @ 22:27  0 comments   email...this post

 
I predicted, to MPS, two hours before it happened...
..."she's going to decide to leave suddenly. One minute she'll act like she lives here and the next she'll need to be in her own home right now."
    I was talking to MPS about my mother. We had a slumber party with MPS and MPNC last night at their home. Their home is wonderful, they've had it a long time and Mom feels uniquely comfortable there, especially in the back yard, most notably in the dead of summer. As well, my mother has a long, strong relationship with both these women and is not prone to forget it. She forgets the updates of their lives, not their pasts, nor how their lives have been intermingled with hers. But, my mother has become dependent on "home", within the last year. When it's time to go home, she should have been home 45 minutes ago.
    Sure enough, one moment Mom was with us at the table, intent as MPNC ran her lines in her new role in a play, then she excused herself to the bathroom and when she returned she arrowed in on me with both her eyes and her index finger and stated, without self-consciousness, "It's time for us to go home."
    MPS looked at me and laughed. I laughed. MPNC laughed. The only one not laughing was Mom. We left within 10 minutes. Before we entered our mobile home park Mom was gripping the handle of her purse and had braced her legs for quick, easy exit from the car. She impatiently awaited my location of the keys.
    When I predicted this behavior to MPS earlier I realized that the only place my mother prefers, now, to home, whether it's MesaHome or PrescottHome, is a restaurant. Anywhere else we are, at some point the visit becomes interminable for her and she announces, "We've got to get home." At a restaurant, though, pulling her away from the human show laid out before her and the pleasure of being served, which is one of my mother's supreme pleasures, is like, well, I was going to say pulling teeth but she's a breeze at the dentist. She's fallen asleep during a root canal. I, on the other hand, become antsy in restaurants. I people watch in more autonomic ways, so restaurants don't interest me. I typically coax her every 15 minutes or so after she's eaten the last morsel of her meal, "So, are you ready?" and cringe when a wait person passes with a refill coffee pot.
    She always says, "Yes," to the refill. "No," she always, always responds to my subtle plea. "The only place to go is home [even though there are scores of other places she wouldn't consider]. We'll end up there eventually. Let's not rush it." We were not, though, at a restaurant for the slumber party, although she received plenty of attention and service.
    I think she may have missed the oxygen. She "went offline" [MPNP's code for his grandmother's/my mother's long famous habit of taking a little nap, usually sitting up, no matter where she is, if she's there for more than a few hours] once yesterday evening and once this morning, didn't arise until 0945, and we left MPS's at 1435, in a hurry. I yelled back to MPS and her family, from our theatre of the absurd, as we backed out of her driveway, "We're already behind schedule..." and got a laugh.
    We did not take oxygen or her nebulizer medication with us, at her insistence. I think, now, that may have been a mistake. I think she may have been a bit more lively if her lungs, and thus her body, had been internally bathed with oxygen throughout the sleep over night.
    I remember, several years ago, when I first came to live with my mother, one in our family cautioned against "getting her started on oxygen" because "once they go on, they never come off", as though it was somehow 'only' a method of delaying a death sentence, rather like dialysis. I've always rolled that logic around in my mind, balancing it against the added alertness and possible months or years oxygen therapy could extend one's life. It was her doctor who suggested it, and at the right time. My mother has been a very reluctant client, mostly because she is a smoker but not insignificantly because of the mechanics of the therapy.
    I am, now, glad that oxygen is at our disposal and that she is using it more frequently. Requesting it, autonomously, when she bathed, some days ago, was a coup. When her oxygen compressor was first delivered in October the tech asked me directly if she took baths and if she became breathless in the tub. I realized she did but tended to discount it because the 'common wisdom' is that a bath relaxes the bather. The heat, though, stimulates the vascular system and puts a burden on the heart, etc., which creates a need for oxygen and causes the bather (if they have a chronic low blood oxygen level) to pant.
    The cannula could use a makeover. I'm not sure whether it is the design or the construction material but, especially in sleep, it is easily dislodged and easy to tighten too tightly. I understand her annoyance with the mechanism because quality varies from cannula to cannula, thus one never really gets the chance to get used to the appliance.
    But, I am grateful oxygen therapy is available. It improves the quality of her life. I think it extends her life. It's okay with me if she "never comes off it." Totally okay. She's got a Living Will to cover extreme circumstances. In the meantime, yes, it is keeping her alive, with a minimum of fuss and, more, it is sharpening her alertness. In subtle ways my mother appreciates this. We all do.
- posted by gail rae @ 20:44  0 comments   email...this post

 
Busy day, busy afternoon, busy evening...
...gone for most of it, Mom was for some of it. We managed to get through what is now yesterday without her remembering the planned visit to See's, which is fine with me. I know it will happen, eventually. Later is better. The last time she overindulged in chocolate I spent half a day cleaning her shit from the carpet. I think I'm better at monitoring her, now. I guess we'll find out.
    I left my mother alone for awhile this evening. She was alert when I left and still awake when I returned, TV jabbering in the background while she read East of Eden. I'd had an ambivalent evening, socially, which sometimes goes hand in hand with involving oneself with intense caretaking on behalf of a relative. It's easy for people of one's opposing gender to downplay one's devotion to it, or to question the sanity of one's devotion, or to quote Guy de Maupassant. At the very least, someone often ends up getting their feelings hurt.
    That isn't, strictly, what happened tonight, but it was insinuated throughout the evening that my attention was wavering and it shouldn't be.
    It is a blessing of sorts that I no longer have the emotional energy required to feel threatened. And, apparently, I wasn't appealing enough, tonight, to be consoled.
    But, the home fires burned warm, tonight, and I'm feeling neither raw nor calloused.
- posted by gail rae @ 02:04  0 comments   email...this post

 
I recognize the breakfast stir...
...in my mother's awakening rustles. While I post this entry I'll be preparing breakfast and greeting my mother to another day, so this may take some time to get out.
    My mother is a breakfast person, and a person of breakfast habit. Her preferred daily breakfast would be waffles, occasionally Belgian, with lots of butter and pure maple syrup, maybe some sausage or bacon on a separate plate, definitely ham if you've got it, strong black coffee (although she has decaffeinated herself) and good conversation. She also loves eggs, especially hard over with lots of pepper, and bacon, toast with butter, and orange juice is a must (and will remain a must, since I recently discovered that the lack of orange juice, when we were controlling for potassium, also promotes bowel accidents), so this is her typical daily breakfast. She has become so inured to it that when it is occasionally altered (say I mix some of the fresh pesto left over from the previous night in with the eggs, or I dispense with eggs in favor of cottage cheese, toast and V-8 juice) she questions my culinary wisdom.
    Today I discovered she is remembering that we still have a gift certificate to See's for one pound of candy, which was given to us Christmas before last by a well meaning friend who thought that, surely, See's would have diabetic candy (they didn't, although I don't know if they still don't). My mother, however, has not forgotten the gift certificate. Last night, in the peak of spirits, she suggested that today might be a good day for "a walk around the mall in the direction of See's." Since it has become relatively easy to control her access to sweets and, as her diet has changed her sweet tooth has also become much less insistent (she actually has episodes where I catch her refusing dessert or a sweet treat at someone's house with the words, "...no thank you, I've never been a dessert person..."), I don't worry about having a few sweets in the house. When her blood sugar is dipping, in fact, refined sugar becomes a treatment. I just have to whisk the sweet away when she threatens to devour our entire supply in one sitting. Although she often forgets her sweet tooth, it still responds to the proximity of sugar.
    At any rate, this post is primarily for me. As I continue producing and directing my mother's breakfast experience, I am entertaining ideas on how to present my mother's and my together history. I want to record some of the ideas here so that I'll remember to work on them.
    I've decided to change direction amid stream. This morning's breakfast will be bacon, egg and cheese on toast. My mother will be scandalized.
    Yes, my mother and I eat differently, although as I experiment with her nutritional regimens I experiment with myself. My mother is an unabashed carnivore. Her new campaign tactic is to quote a recently viewed factoid from a Discovery Channel show mentioning that eating meat was a substantial factor in the hominid evolutionary development of intelligence (what she chooses to retain is sometimes annoying). Although I was smitten with meat early in life, I got away from it, except as flavoring, for years. It has been only recently that I've been carefully incorporating more meat into my diet. I'm a big vegetable, fruit, grain and cheese eater, though I've always been suspicious of 'sweet'. My mother would prefer it if vegetables didn't exist. She could be said to be a grain person, if you include refined white bread, and certainly a fatty dairy person. Thus, I still shop for one when it comes to vegetables, mostly, and shop for one and a half when it comes to meat. We've both compromised to each other's likes, and to my mother's diabetes, which is okay with me. When she is on a severe, short term regimen, I simply eat what she's eating, as such a regimen usually means we have to rid the house of anything outside of the restrictions since my mother prefers not to remember the ever changing detail of what she "can" and "can't" eat, and the back closet can store only so much food.
    I do, by the way, occasionally wonder if my use of my memory on her behalf may somehow encourage her memory to slack off without psychosomatic reason. I've been very wary, though, in offering myself on behalf of her memory. I usually let us get into minor trouble before I begin to take over. For instance, she overdrew us at the bank one month, to the tune of a couple thousand dollars, before I took hold of her check book. I'd noticed and commented on her seat-of-the-pants management of her money previous to the incident, and she had not taken kindly to my observations. She is a chiefly empirical woman, though, and it took only one startling overdraw for her to gratefully relinquish the household accounting tasks. She considered it a relief, and we were none the worse for the wear.
    Okay. Regarding the posting of our history, as gleaned from emails and notes I've written. As I continue with this journal I'm realizing that the volume of material from posting, alone, is probably overwhelming to those readers who know me, let alone those who don't. This is the reason I decided to add a site search engine. However, considering the stream-of-consciousness nature of both posting to a daily journal and constructing a history from dated letters and notes, haphazard organization is probably not a good idea. I cannot imagine even someone who is extremely interested in me wanting to wade through all the material already uploaded, let alone what is to come.
    Part of the problem is that, in order to save time, I decided to utilize my ISP's auto website builder, a distinctly inflexible device, to throw pages up. Although it has been efficient, it has also been maddening as organizational ideas for my history postings that will make it easy for readers to peruse topics and click directly to anecdotes or information they might find useful, rather than plowing through everything, require more use of space than these templates, I'm discovering, will allow. This is why you may be noticing that I am varying page templates, although this doesn't seem to be helping. So, over the next week or so I'm probably going to sink my hands into from-scratch page design, again, as I figure out a way to present thumbnail sketches of material for easy perusal by my readers.
    In the meantime, the search engine is startlingly useful and, as soon as I finish this, I am going to re-spider to include the uploaded 1999 history.

My Caretaking Journal Manifesto (1st Draft):
My fundamental purpose in establishing and maintaining this journal is to break the isolation of the caretaking experience within our immediate circle by offering our loved ones a window into our living detail. As I post to this journal I most often think about my sisters and their children. I think of how busy and involved their lives are, how busy and involved my mother's and my lives are, and I think that, when they are ready for a breather, if they come to this site, they can be assured that they will not miss anything and will recognize us and fall easily into our arms and our routines when we are again face to face.
- posted by gail rae @ 11:29  0 comments   email...this post

 
"...and I test it often." --Wilford Brimley for Liberty Medical
    When my mother's life veered into the realm of Adult Onset Diabetes we began by testing her blood sugar thrice daily. Progress was slow, fingers were sore, and meal time was always preceded by a nasty exchange:
    Mom: "I don't see why we have to go through this."
    Me: "It's important. You'll feel better when your blood sugar is under control."
    Mom: "I feel just fine."
    And, she did. Her "improvement" was not as dramatic as it is with younger people, in part because she saw no initial reason to control her appetite for quality since she never has and in part because an old body adjusts slowly. She didn't notice her raised level of alertness and interest, wasn't always aware that her energy was simmering, rather than sluggish. She has, however, remained not only aware of but annoyed with daily blood glucose testing (although she's exhibited a curious interest in the numbers, lately).
    If our experience had proved the party line, I would still be stabbing my mother's fingers three times a day. In fact, the less stressed she and I are over her blood glucose, the more manageable her blood glucose becomes. I am not recommending our approach. I am beginning to understand, though, that when Adult Onset Diabetes onsets at or over 80 as a result of aging, the prognosis is far different than when someone drives their body to diabetes at the age of 45. My mother's medical records show that although the condition didn't develop overnight, it adjusted itself periodically until her 80's, at which time her previous doctor decided her insulin production needed to be stimulated with Glucophage (metformin). Thus, the conditions that can be expected to occur if someone's diabetes is left untreated at, say 45 (poor circulation, renal failure, congestive heart failure, the list goes on since it is a systemic dis-ease) will most likely not develop in my mother because she will not live long enough for their development. I have mentioned this to both her doctors at this clinic she now visits and although neither explicitly confirms my suspicions, neither denies them, as well. Her first doctor at this clinic, though, was forthright with her in allowing her the choice of whether or not to treat her diabetes, seeing as how "something else is going to get you before this does, Mrs. Hudson." He did stress that she could expect a more alert, energetic old age with treatment, but also acknowledged that it was up to her. She chose treatment, although she and I have an understanding that, at any time, any treatment is up for reevaluation.
    The difference between our testing schedule now versus at the beginning is extraordinary. I usually do a 3-5 day run previous to any doctor's visit, twice a day (if I remember), just so I'll know what to expect and have something to report. I test when she is looking particularly pale, or dazed, or her energy is lagging, or, for that matter, if she is frenetic, which happens, occasionally. If I'm monitoring her nutritional intake through a period of low activity, though, and she appears to be in a repair and/or adjustment phase of her cycle, I leave her fingers alone.
    Occasionally she is put on a short term medication (usually an antibiotic, although Prednizone does the same thing) that plays havoc with her blood sugar. I learned, from experience, not to obsessively stick her from hour to hour to see what it's doing when her blood glucose level turns her mildly bipolar. These are also the periods when I learned how to tune into the non-invasively observable cues as to what her blood sugar is doing and whether it should be allowed to continue unabated.
    Her current doctor adjusts his expectations of her glucose range as time goes by. Initially, he was happy if she remained under 200. Then, he liked an average of 150. Now, he squints if she has a morning reading of 130, but yesterday admitted that I need to keep her "above 100, now" (I didn't ask why) and not to worry when she decides she wants something sweet and her evening reading approaches 170 (if I take an evening reading). Nine months ago he was verbally taken to task by my mother's consulting hematologist (whom he chose) for allowing my mother's blood sugar to "float" around 150. He is young enough so that when his judgment is questioned by a specialist's specialist he talks fast and barks orders down the line. When I pointed out that the hematologist was getting excited about a 157 reading on a clean CBC with Metabolic Panel and A Whole Bunch of Other Tests, he calmed down, and now, with each appointment, we debate the merits of my management techniques versus the standard, well, party line. He is, for the time being, holding with me.
    A large part of the reason for my considerations of technique in managing my mother's diabetes stems from my sense of her perception of the aging of her body and the amount to which it needs to be observed by physicians. My mother's health history is one of regular check-ups, two minor surgeries, as little medicine and Medicine as possible, attention to whether she "feels bad" and how she defines this, and a relaxed acceptance of certain aspects of the process of aging that other less settled souls find intolerable. Thus, if you want to look at her body without poking around inside, be her guest, but when it involves instruments, anesthesia and something called "prep", well, my belief is that she radios her interior and warns, "Invasion imminent, prepare for evasive action," and, sure enough, her body rallies.
    So, we are relaxed about blood glucose testing around here. If the need should arise for more testing, I trust that I'll notice this. In the meantime, I invade my mother's privacy enough as it is. Just a few nights ago, while checking her underwear to see if she needed to change it and realizing how indelicate some of my ministrations are, I started laughing and said to my mother, her underwear around her ankles, "You know, Mom, I can't wait until I'm old enough so that someone can walk in on me and check my underwear every time I sit on the toilet!"
    She blossomed into a wry grin. "I want to be around to see that," she confirmed.
    It's true that health care is becoming more the responsibility of the cared for than has been the case. It is true that home testing of a variety of chronic, manageable conditions is a good idea and increases the likelihood that taking personal responsibility for one's health care will include taking advantage of the most reliable and up-to-date medical information and treatment. It is true that my mother's perception of how she feels cannot always be trusted because her "expectations" (all those internal warning signals that begin to slack off, as one ages, when it becomes apparent that a certain condition must be lived with) are lowered. It is true, too, that nothing beats the value of the habitual, detailed attention caretakers pay to their charges, in large part because of intimate bonds that were established years before.
    I am always anxious to delineate a cogent definition for the ineffable processes often labeled "just knowing." At the same time, when I can't lingualize those processes, I continue to trust them. It pays to have a doctor who agrees that the art of medicine lies within the ineffable processes.
- posted by gail rae @ 10:22  0 comments   email...this post

 
How to explain yesterday?
    And, why explain yesterday? To repeat it, maybe, in the future. I wonder, though, if the problem isn't that Ancient Bodies develop a peculiar dialect through time, especially dense to those of us whose bodies are still engaged, overwhelmingly, in preservation rather than preparation for biodegrading. It is for this reason that I take pride in my mother's strength of will, as, sometimes, this is the only way I know to either back off on bothering her to sit up, to move, to focus, or to encourage a burst of in-my-environment consciousness on her part.
    After two, no, three days of living beneath a pale, almost jaundiced veil of lethargy, of mostly sleeping, mostly dazing out at the world, of me supplicating to her blood sugar, her hydration level, the echoes of her congested or dry coughing that seemed impossible to nebulize away, her body barely maintaining a minimum metabolic rate so that nutrition was no longer a matter of minerals or calories, but of clogging, on the fourth day she revived. Granted, since she was prone most of those days, she got a lot of supplemental oxygen. But, a revival is supposed to take place after effort. I don't understand the effort my mother was expending over the last three days and how it contributed over the weekend to a Memorable Monday.
    Sometimes, I wonder if it is simply a matter of color. She has a deep peach knit shirt that flashes equally well over either her black-black slacks (the ones with the diagonal side pockets full of Kleenex®) and her light brown pocketless pants. When she wears her peach shirt, as she did yesterday, and one of these pairs of pants, her brilliance, that glitter of vitality that disappears completely only at death, is enhanced.
    I used to think it was the bathing that stimulated her. Too many times, though, when we've needed a few hours apart, I've returned to find her cockily seated in either her rocking chair (experimenting with the remote on the TV to the place where I have to unplug everything and reset it) or at the dining room table (scouring both newspapers and all 6 tabloids for gossip and information so that she'll perform well during Jeopardy! and Hollywood Squares), fully dressed, well matched, obviously not bathed but humming as though she had. I wonder if, as we age, we become more comfortable with the habits of our youth. My mother, for a fair share of her growing up years in the central part of the country, bathed twice a week, sometimes three times if attending a special event. That is about how often she will deign to bathe, now, even though a mere four years ago a morning bath was her first order of business every day after breakfast. Since, in my childhood, I was trained to daily baths, I wonder if as I age I will not only continue, but find comfort in the ritual daily bath.
    This morning she has been up and returned to bed twice, but it is still early. I see evidence of her having been up in the night: the cheese has been left out (she prefers it warm, greasy and tupperware-hard, with cracks here and there and, yes, we have two blocks of each flavor of cheese we like, hers and mine) and a few more bites are missing from the blueberry dessert I prepared last night. Good. Since her appetite seemed healthy, yesterday, I reinstated her full level of diabetic medication and tempted her with tart (tart and sweet have always been her favorite flavors) offerings, yesterday: deviled eggs flavored with mustard, onion and dill relish; tabasco sauce in her V-8® juice; slightly sour cottage cheese ("Make sure it's old," she always reminds me, as I head for the grocery store); a lemony, low sugar blueberry sauce I improvised when it became apparent her sweet tooth was screaming. The temptation worked. I expect her blood glucose to beep in at a respectable 120-130 this morning; high for a 45 year old woman but a cause for celebration with my mother. I think I read someplace, in my wanderings to discover the mysteries of aging, that as tastebuds age prominence, not just presence, counts when flavoring food. My mother's experience seems to bear this out.
    This morning, since I have the time, I'm going to follow this post with two more; one, a personal 'rant' about diabetic glucose testing and the other a review of how my ideas are taking shape for the presentation of Mom & Me's history.
- posted by gail rae @ 09:26  0 comments   email...this post

 
History Lessons
    I just uploaded the sparse history of our first recorded year, 1999. It is finished as is, and is short. I didn't correspond, too much, with anyone, during that time. There were a few pertinent recollections that provide a decent characterization of that year, the year when caretaking began to become more intense more quickly.
- posted by gail rae @ 17:21  0 comments   email...this post

 
Excellent Day!
    Our last appointment, at 1:30 p.m., was a well-doctor's visit, and all of us were pleased! I haven't been sure, this lethargic last weekend, that it would go well. She was pinked up this morning, though, a little slow but nothing like this weekend, no swelling anywhere of any kind, ate a good breakfast, stayed in the bath longer than usual, fussed a little (always a good sign) and walked faster and with more assurance than she has, lately. I've been giving her a third iron pill, lately, if she is up enough to eat something with it. That formula translated into 2 iron pills yesterday, though, so my hopes for today were reasonably low.
    Her hair appointment went well. The light at the salon is unforgiving. She looked good under that light, today. Although she snored (unusual for her) on the couch for a half hour between appointments, when I called her she was on her feet, in the bathroom and back in the living room within 5 minutes. That's a record.
    Her doctor approved of my substitution of hearty foot and calf massage for furosemide (Lasix) to reduce water retention and expressed confidence in my judgment of giving her only 1/4 of a tablet (10 mg) when necessary.
    Her blood pressure was good, 102/52. He thinks it may rise a bit in Prescott, but he considers that good, so we're good to go after he see's her on July 9th for a final prescription medication review and a consultation on her visit to her hematologist on July 7th. Her blood oxygen level, having been off oxygen supplementation since 9:00 a.m., was a respectable 93. Because she's up now, of course (she's avoiding an afternoon lay-in), she's smoking, but not a lot and she's not coughing.
I'm feeling quite positive, today, about her condition. Although she resists it, it is usually (not always) better to get her up and going in the morning. I'm getting very good at telling her lazy resistance from her fundamental resistance to movement.
    Sometimes I worry that I sympathize too much with her prodigious sleep habits. Sleeping is one of my favorite activities. I never feel as though I get enough of it. It revives me, I entertain myself and solve problems in the dream state, I have have a bed fetish and work at making my beds ultimately comfortable. I don't like to be laying down if I'm not sleep-tired. But, I've been known, although not often, to take out a day and do nothing but travel from nap to nap. So, when my mother sleeps, my first instinct it to project my own sense of alert peacefulness onto her sleep. Thus, I know I have allowed her, at times, to oversleep. I watch this carefully, now, because oversleep leads to bowel accidents, not to mention all the other attendant veils over one's vitality.

    You'll notice that I've begun to set up a roving history of my mother's and my companionship. That is how I refer to myself with people, as her companion. I'm a little ambivalent about the wealth of material that is suddenly going to be uploaded to the site over the next few months. If and as I gain more readers I may figure out a way to mark and bring your attention to certain anecdotes I think might be especially appreciated. Otherwise, all material will be spidered into the search index, in case there is something in particular you're wondering about.
- posted by gail rae @ 15:49  0 comments   email...this post

 
I've replaced...
...the Bravenet site search engine with one from Atomz.com. I've used this one before, on other, now dead sites. It's an amazing tool, and it's free. And, the results are readable. I've added the page with site search options to the Links area.
- posted by gail rae @ 13:37  0 comments   email...this post

 
Looks like it's going to be a low key day,
today. Mom spent a lot of yesterday in bed. It was hard to make sure she had enough food to ameliorate the effects of her diabetic medications. Sometimes it's nice to have lower doses on hand.
    We have a slew of movies from a friend, some of which I think she'll enjoy seeing, some of which she'll talk through, probably.
    Her taste in movies used to be strictly animated Disney stories, historical epics and musicals from the era of the 60's and a bit later: The Ten Commandments, How the West Was Won, On A Clear Day You Can See Forever (she loves the movie, even though she hates Barbra Streisand, whom I love), I think she even sat through several showings of Khartoum, on behalf of my father. Her hearing doesn't help, either; background noise on a soundtrack is a deal breaker, as well as background noise in our environment.
    Her choices aren't those of the market, right now, and, from simple over exposure to me and my tastes, she's widened her interests. A few months ago I watched a delightful Dutch film, with subtitles, one of my mother's all time peeves along with "English Accents" (which means any accent other than Middle American English), Antonia's Line. Although I wasn't sure, I had a hunch my mother would get into it, so I taped it and played it for her. She loved it. She surprised me, as well, by observing that Dutch, when subtitled, is easy for an English speaking person to understand, and it is, even a hearing impaired person.
    She also surprised me by finding Chocolat boring. I even tried this one on her twice, hoping she wouldn't remember her first viewing and maybe that one had been on one of her "bad" days. I don't know if she remembered it but she reacted in exactly the same way. I think park of the problem may have been the narration. She does a lot of lip reading when she listens, and narration, I think, may be a bit of a problem, as well as women's voices; and, Chocolat is narrated by a woman's voice.
    Today we've got an interesting line-up, including a cartoonish action movie that I want to slather over: X-Men; an old movie that I don't think my mother's seen but I think she'll like: Dirty Dancing (she liked Flashdance and loves Strictly Ballroom; I think, by definition she loves all dance movies); one sex-thriller: Unfaithful, she may or may not watch this one, I just want to see the arousal scene for the fourth time; one hetero-thriller: Changing Lanes; one with Vin Diesel, John Malkovich and Dennis Hopper that I know nothing about: Knockaround Guys, but it looks like it contains some gratuitous violence so Mom may doze during this one.
    Tonight, I think, we'll do some reading out loud. Years ago, when she and my father lived in the same vicinity, I would come over a couple of times a week and we'd read books aloud to each other and discuss them. When I moved in with her in December, 1993, we renewed the tradition. It became apparent, though, that she no longer enjoyed the reading out loud part, so I began to read out loud exclusively. Although we don't read every night, we do frequently; it survives fallow periods.
    We've read some great books; all kinds, fiction and non-fiction. In My Father's House by, I believe, Dorothy Sullivan; a memoir of life as a child in a polygamous Mormon household; No Ordinary Time by Doris Kearns Goodwin, need I say more?; and some pretty light weight entertainment. We're making our way through the No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency series, now. They are fun and thoughtful, for both of us. Last week, though, while watching Oprah she saw the show about the "new" book club and decided she wants to read East of Eden. For me it will be a second reading, probably for her, too, although she can't remember. It looks pretty ambitious for her attention span, but I anticipate, as always, being surprised by her.
    I may do a little site updating, today; it looks as though it's going to be a slow, in-home, no company day; maybe wash day. I've decided to use excerpts from email letters I've written people throughout these years to establish an informal history of both my experience of caretaking and my mother's years in The Country of the Ancient. It will be an ongoing project.
    I hear my mother rummaging. A good sign, this early in the day. Maybe it won't matter that she had oxygen only half the night last night. I had been distracted by engaging company and forgot to set her up. She's breathing evenly, though, not through her mouth, and had a breathing treatment last night, so she may be a little slow to consciousness, but I think she'll be okay, at least until nap time...time to make coffee, or, maybe Earl Gray Tea, this morning...I'll ask her...
- posted by gail rae @ 09:21  0 comments   email...this post